Hello everyone,
I am new to this forum. I went through
most of the messages and found many useful hints.
Thanks a lot.

My question concerns the jive basic
step. For the Lady it is either three steps or
one step to the right followed by back step
with her right. I was taught that during the back
step my weight still stays forward. Someone
wrote already on this forum, that it helps
save timing when the Lady will do the turn
straight after.

The thing is, that during a social party I have seen one girl taking very short step back and shifting her weight to free her left leg for a short while. Here she was doing a quick kick
close to the floor with the straight left leg,
and than again shift her weight forward.
She would finish as usial, wiht right leg free.
I thought it looked great and tried that too.
It works well for quick music.

I wonder, what kind of variation is that, and
whether it is appropriate to do it in standard
jive?

[This message was edited by Anya on 02-13-01 at 05:53 AM.]

[This message was edited by Anya on 02-13-01 at 05:56 AM.]

If you're doing just the basic step in jive, doesn't the lady move to her right on the first triple step, to the left on the second triple step, and then rock back on her right foot? The man goes to the left, then right, the rocks back on his left foot, correct? Well anyway, yes, you do generally want to try to keep your weight forward on the rock step. If you let your weight get too far back, you'll sort of fall back and won't be able to get out of the rock step in time for the following step/figure. As for the variation you're talking about it sounds like a Kick (Flick?) Ball Change which was (is?) considered bronze. I don't have the new technique book with me to check on the new syllabus, they may have changed it in the revision. Basically it's as you described -- instead of just rocking back on the RF and changing weight to the LF (SS or 1 2), you flick/kick with your RF, then put it down and take the weight on your RF briefly before changing weight to your LF (QaQ or 3a4). It's a fairly common variation so you can probably do it whenever you feel like it, but if you're going to do it in a syllabus competition you should check whether or not it's allowed in the syllabus because I'm not sure offhand.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

Yes, Dronak, you are absolutely right.
Indeed it is triple step left for the Lady,
than triple step back followed by back step.
Sorry for writing in a hurry last time.

Thanks for your answer. It is fairly easy to
do it without shifting my weight back too much.
As for your last remark, I am doing just social
dance, so either variant should be fine.

Cheers,
Anya.

[This message was edited by Anya on 02-13-01 at 12:41 PM.]